Think about it.
- Many domestic competitors are gone, sent to the wall by combinations of the high $A, the power of the retail duopoly to call the tune with prices and terms, house brand expansion, and poor management.
- Coles and Woolies have lost some of their grip as Aldi makes inroads, and some of the independents like Ritchies continue to compete effectively in local markets, and access to food service, ingredient and alternative retail becomes easier.
- Consumer brand loyalty has been disrupted by the disappearance of some of the favoured brands, offering opportunities to forge new brand loyalties
- Marketing expenditure can now be highly directed, and its effectiveness measured and continuous improvement be applied.
- The costs of the tools like the analytics required to do effective category management, a data intensive exercise are getting cheaper and cheaper, and the skills needed to make sense of the data more available.
- SME’s are recognising that collaborative actions are not verboten, but are in fact very sensible and cost effective. Making it easier, digital technology has removed one of the greatest barriers to effective collaboration, the inability to communicate.
- SME management has also recognised that collaboration is strategically and operationally sensible to build comeptitive scale to enable long term prosperity, so there are potential partners around.
- Export is easier, as trade barriers are dropping, and product niches are often global
None of this of course is of any value unless you have the cash flow, determination, and management capability to make the changes necessary. However, those that have survived the last 10 years are a robust bunch, now the pressure is off a bit, don’t make the mistake of taking a breather, get in there!
